Information on YouTube Income & Why We’re Seeing the Move to Streaming Platforms

I want to give information based on my experience with YouTube income and explain why series are looking to license their series to other platforms which we’ve seen as a trend in both GL & BL series (aka GMMTV used to be all on YouTube and now frequently has their series on other platforms for some countries, then geo-blocks on YouTube). 

YouTube revenue is not as much as you think it is (money is in USD)
According to the internet, YouTube income is .01 to .03 cents per view. However this varies wildly based on business content versus entertainment content (entertainment is less) and where your viewers are located geographically. When I was monetized for 2 weeks in December 2021, I had 1.5 million views on my compilation videos (under 5 minutes) and was supposed to earn $531 (fyi was later demonetized for not transforming reused content enough and never received that money). 

Calculating the income per view would be 0.000354 cents per view (far below what an internet search says). 

Let's take a look at the GL series The Loyal Pin which was 16 episodes of about 45 minutes per episode broken into 4 parts on YouTube. I will take an average of 2 million views per part (sounds like a ton of money right?!)

.000354 X 2,000,000 = $708 (their video parts are longer than mine, so I’ll add in another ad and estimate $1,000)

$1,000 per part x 4 parts = $4,000
$4,000 X 16 episodes = $64,000

There are a ton of variables here such as: our audiences might be a bit different, not sure if Thai creators get a similar amount as US creators, my income is from 3 years ago etc, but I think it gives us a rough idea how YouTube pays very little. 

How much does a Thai series cost?
I don’t work in the Thai entertainment industry, here is a post in our subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/GirlsLove/comments/1gsej0j/how_much_money_does_it_cost_to_make_a_whole_gl/

“Period drama or drama that’s shot overseas will probably get more budget than the 50k usd” [per episode]. The Loyal Pin was a period drama/more expensive, but if we take $50,000 USD/episode, then the series would have cost $800,000. 

YouTube Income vs. Expense
$64,000 - $800,000 = -$736,000 
This explains licensing to other streaming platforms, product placements, fan meets, merchandise, concerts, etc. We see that the YouTube revenue is not even close to what a series costs to make. 

The Moral of the Story
While I understand the frustration of not being able to see things for free on YouTube or needing to use a VPN, we need to watch and support our favorite series on whatever platform/s they officially air on. This is especially true if we want to see non-school settings which cost more. 

TLDR
YouTube pays very little, we need to support series streaming platforms other than YouTube if we want them to continue to be made.